How To Setup Two-Step Verification For Your LinkedIn Account

Online security is a rising concern and whether it’s your Facebook account or your Twitter Profile, a compromised online presence can be downright dangerous. What’s even more dangerous is if your LinkedIn profile were hacked. Not only do you lose all the connections that you’ve made over time, but your authentic professional profile gets into the hands of someone who could wreck havoc on your professional life. We’ve mostly heard of Facebook and Twitter profiles being hacked, but LinkedIn users have just as much, or even more, riding on these accounts. That is why LinkedIn has finally introduced two-step authentication, joining Twitter, Outlook, and Apple as one of the companies to do so this year. The process is pretty much the same; you give LinkedIn a phone number, verify it, and the next time you sign in, LinkedIn will send a code to that number, which you must enter in order to sign in. Be warned: to set this up, make sure you’re on your primary computer; do not set it up from a public system. Read on for further details.

Turn on two-step verification, and then enter your phone number. You will receive a code that you must enter to verify your phone number.

If you read the fine print on the page you’re entering the code on, you will see that you’re not just verifying your number, but also the computer that you’re currently signed into. The only problem is that LinkedIn does not have a page for managing devices. You will be able to choose whether or not LinkedIn remembers the device you sign into, but you have no option to stop it from recognizing the device you set up authentication on. This is why we advised earlier to not set it up on a public computer. The only way to remove a device is to disable two-step authentication, which removes all verified devices.

After your phone number has been verified, you will receive a code on your phone each time you log in from an unrecognized device, that you must enter in order to successfully sign in. By default, the ‘Recognize this device in future’ option is checked, so be careful when you sign into a device that you don’t want to be remembered.

That’s all there is to it; while the new security feature is welcome, it’s easy to spot a few problems with it. Firstly, it remembers devices by default, whereas Google has you opt-in to remember a device. Secondly, devices cannot be managed, and the device you use to set up two-step authentication will be remembered whether you like it not. Lastly, this will effect some of the applications and services you use, and it’s likely that you might not be able to use some of them in the future. Like most things on LinkedIn, my feelings towards this is a job done half-right.

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